Tracking the funds for AIDS

Erin McCormick, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 26, 1998

Michael Petrelis wants to know what happened to the $1.5billion the United States spent on AIDS last year.

The 39-year-old AIDS patient, and a growing number of activists like him, have been willing to bang on locked boardroom doors, rifle through file cabinets and generally raise hell to make sure money raised for AIDS goes to fight the deadly disease and not to overhead expenses and high salaries for charity executives.

Now they are taking their crusade public with an Internet Web site that will allow donors and people with AIDS to follow the money that goes to the dozens of charity relief efforts around the country.

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"There's a new phenomenon of people with AIDS living longer, which means we're asking more questions about services," said Petrelis, who said since he started prodding organizations for financial information he has been banned from receiving full services at three Bay Area AIDS charities.

"We're now questioning where the money goes from the AIDS Walk, the AIDS Ride and the AIDS Dance-athon because we would like to have services like hot meals and housing," he said.

The Accountability Project Web site (www.accountabilityproject.com), which reveals IRS tax filings and other financial information about major U.S. AIDS charities and other nonprofits, makes it possible for Internet surfers to get instant information about how they spend their money.

The project, an offshoot of the in-your-face AIDS activist group, ACT UP Golden Gate, is also pushing for laws to require open board meetings, democratic management and greater financial scrutiny for the nation's rapidly growing nonprofit sector.

"Nonprofits are a trillion-dollar industry in the U.S.," said project member Jeff Getty, who has lobbied to get City Hall to pass laws requiring more public accountability from nonprofits that get city funds.

"Our country is creating a huge sector that's sometimes replacing government and is spending government money, but has no elected officials and no taxpayer accountability."

Tax returns in public eye&lt;

So far, the Accountability Project Web site has published the tax returns of 28 nonprofits from around the nation, ranging from the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis to Walden House, a substance abuse recovery program that devotes only a portion of its resources to people with AIDS.

And while, on the whole, the documents show a vast array of lifesaving work being done on behalf of AIDS patients, Petrelis says, they also raise questions about some charities' priorities.

For instance, the reports show that 21 executives, who worked at 10 of the charities, had pay packages exceeding $100,000.

The highest salary and benefits package went to Walden House Executive Director Alfonso Acamporo, who made $186,000 in 1996. Jerome Radwin, a director of the American Foundation for AIDS Research in New York, received the second highest, $181,000, followed by Pat Christen of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, whose total compensation was $162,000.

The tax information also shows some executives getting large pay increases at a time when, Petrelis says, government funding for AIDS is increasingly scarce.

In the case of the Washington, D.C., meal program, Food and Friends, tax returns show that Executive Director Craig Shniderman got a 62 percent raise in 1996, from 63,000 to $102,000.

Judging the compensation&lt;

Dan Langen of the National Charities Information Bureau, which monitors tax-exempt organizations, said the issue of how much they should pay their executives is often controversial.

On one hand, he said, if a multimillion-dollar charity hires a manager who doesn't know how to handle money, it may see revenues - and services - disappear fast. But

"there should be a difference between for-profit compensation and nonprofit. These people might be able to make a lot of money on Wall Street, but when they choose to work for a charity, they have chosen a different lifestyle."

The National Charities Bureau says nonprofits should spend at least half of their budgets on the charity mission, not on fund raising or administrative costs. It's a goal exceeded by all groups on the Web site.

That doesn't satisfy Petrelis.

He questions spending by Visual Aid, a small charity that helps artists suffering from devastating diseases by providing art supplies and organizing exhibitions. Petrelis noted that the group reported spending only 21 percent of its $159,000 budget on grants for artists' supplies, while much of the rest went to salaries and overhead.

Visual Aid Executive Director Jim Fisher said without its two staff members, the organization would be unable to put on exhibits, solicit donations of supplies or do any fund raising.

"We're about motivating people with illnesses to start working again," he said. "The Michael Petrelises of the world like to yell at us tiny people, who are just trying to build a base."

Petrelis said his pet peeve is the campaign for a $3.7million Memorial AIDS Grove in Golden Gate Park, which solicited donors to pay $10,000 to sponsor a boulder and $15,000 for a park bench.

Petrelis said he doesn't understand how, at a time when people are still dying of AIDS, groups can be raising $10,000 for a boulder.

But project director Tom Weyand said the grove serves a vital purpose for those who have lost loved ones to AIDS and is not meant to compete with programs helping those fighting the disease.

"It's about memories," he said.

Degrees of privacy&lt;

While no nonprofit groups protest having their IRS reports on the Accountability Project Web site, some recoil at the group's efforts to get them to make public all financial records and board meetings.

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation said it's happy to have its tax filings posted but opposes measures that would require additional paperwork.

Petrelis said the cooperative treatment program run by the AIDS Foundation, the San Francisco AIDS Health Project and the Shanti Project barred him from group therapy sessions and group events after he got another piece of information and put it on the Web site: a transcript of an AIDS Foundation focus group in which patients were interviewed about the quality of services.

Petrelis said the foundation charged he had stolen the transcripts and banished him from group sessions as punishment for compromising the confidentiality of survey participants.

The AIDS Foundation and the Shanti Project said confidentiality rules barred them from commenting on Petrelis' status as a client.

But, while Petrelis and other Accountability advocates are criticized for being confrontational, the movement to require more scrutiny of nonprofits has caught fire.

"The bigger nonprofits get, the more chance they get out of touch with their constituencies," said Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who plans to introduce legislation Monday requiring more openness from nonprofits getting city money.

"We need to make sure the accountability is there so we aren't kept in the dark about what these organizations are doing to earn their keep," Ammiano said.&lt;

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